Sins of Our Fathers (9781571319128) (26 page)

JW turned and raised his arms wide, herding both her and Sam out the door. “Okay, okay, thank you, you can leave now, Frank and I are now having a conference—” They looked to Jorgenson for guidance. He lifted a hand.

“It's fine. We forgot to set up a meeting this morning.”

“See? Out.” JW closed the door behind them and turned back to Jorgenson. Fire burned in his lungs, but he held his anger in abeyance, to see what he could learn. He regarded the man who had given him his career.

“What the hell are you thinking, coming in here like this?” Jorgenson said.

“That's what I thought you'd say. No responsibility. But I don't respond well to personal threats. You want to communicate, do it like a man.”

“John, get ahold of yourself—”

“Oh, I am ahold of myself, for the first time in a long time.” He put a hand on the desk and leaned in, pointing. “I told you I would check on him—”

“It's simply a legal procedure—”

“Bullshit! It's childish intimidation and it's in bad faith. Did you set that fire?”

Jorgenson glanced out his office window at the employees, who were watching the confrontation.

“It's a simple question.” JW went to the window wall and closed the wooden louver blinds.

“Did you set that fire?” he asked again.

“You have no idea how much damage you're doing.”

“Oh, I have a pretty good idea of what I'm doing. The problem is, there's nothing wrong with the guy!”

“You said he smokes pot.”

“It's organic tobacco! And I'll tell you what else. The man doesn't do drugs, he cares about his kid, and he's trying to do right by his people. There's nothing wrong with him.” He was leaning in again, high with a sense of righteousness and control he hadn't enjoyed since before Chris's death.

Jorgenson pushed back in his chair. “Well, that changes things,” he said, thinking. “How do you know it's not pot?”

“Because I have the combination to his safe,” said JW, waving his spiral notepad. “I found the bag, and it's organic Indian tobacco. Now you listen to me. I'm done screwing around. I understand what you're holding over me, but I am sick of living in a fucking trailer and being your personal hatchet man. And it doesn't help matters when I get this kind of threat.”

“You want to quiet down, please?”

“Will you play fairly?”

“Of course.”

JW took a seat. The same seat, he noted, that Johnny Eagle had once taken in this very office. But this time it was the power seat, because Jorgenson was about to start playing by his rules. “You want to stop Johnny Eagle?” he asked.

Jorgenson didn't answer, and JW figured he was probably worried it might be some kind of trap. So JW enunciated.

“I said, do you want to stop Johnny Eagle?” He sat with both arms laid wide on the chair arms.

“Of course,” said Jorgenson.

“Then you have to set him up.”

Jorgenson looked relieved. His jaw loosened and he leaned back. “Okay,” he said, “how can we do that?”

“The only way it's going to work at this point is to plant something on him. Something incriminating. I'm the only one close enough to him to do that, and that brilliant fire has made him extremely wary, even of me. Fortunately, I still have the trust of his son.”

JW knew Jorgenson would be attracted by the logic of this perspective. If there were no drugs, then framing Eagle would be the next best option and, short of killing him, possibly the only option. At the very least it would buy them time and cast doubt, which might well be enough under the circumstances. And JW was indeed the man for the job. There was no one closer. He watched Jorgenson come to the realization that he, JW, held the fate of the bank, and perhaps Jorgenson's entire career, in his hands.

“So what do you need?” Jorgenson said finally.

“Partnership.”

“Partnership?”

“I'll make it simple for you. Capitol Bank Holdings gives me fifteen percent ownership of this branch, which is just half of the value I've added under my leadership, and you forgive the second mortgage—not the first—and give me five thousand now so I can pay my bills. In exchange, Johnny Eagle and his bank go away, and you get a highly motivated partner.”

Jorgenson's face looked sad. “No way I could get that approved by the brass, you know that.”

“Then you better think carefully about what you are going to do in your next career, because the man offered me a job.
Think about what I could do for him. What the tribe pulling their deposits out of this bank would mean to its solvency and to your bid to become CEO. I want that for you as much as you do, Frank. There is nobody who deserves to lead this bank chain more than you do, and I've been your most loyal soldier for more than twenty years. I'd like to continue that career.”

Jorgenson studied him like an animal backed into a corner. JW's gambit had taken the game to an entirely new level, but this time he was the house. He held all the best cards.

“All right, you have a deal,” said Jorgenson. He looked bitter and his face was ashen. “It'll take me a little while to sell it to the brass. You'll have to trust me, and you'll have to deliver.”

“Oh, I'll deliver,” said JW, extending a hand.

Jorgenson looked at it, then pushed back and stood.

“Save the handshake for when we close on this fucker,” he said. JW withdrew his hand, feeling cautious and unfulfilled. Jorgenson walked around the desk, passed behind him, and went to the door. He opened it to reveal Sandy and Schmeaker hovering nearby.

“Sandy, be a good girl and cut a check for me to sign to Mr. White for five thousand dollars—”

“Cash,” said JW.

“All right. Cash.”

“Of course,” said Sandy, stumbling on her high heels as she turned to head for the tellers.

Jorgenson looked at Schmeaker. “It's all right,” he said. “Everything's fine. You can go back to your office.” He closed the door and walked back around his desk, loosening his tie.

“You never answered my question,” said JW as he made a steeple out of his fingers.

“I'm sorry,” said Jorgenson as he sat back in his chair.
“You flustered me. Well played, by the way. It's a move I might have made. What was the question?” Despite his congratulatory tone, he had the air of a murderer, and JW remained cautious. Again, he enunciated very clearly and slowly.

“Did you burn down the bank?”

Jorgenson sat back in his chair and snorted as if JW had asked something so obvious as to be foolish. JW stared at him over his steepled fingers until he answered. “What? Is that a surprise? Of course I did! This isn't a fucking dinner party. You should thank me for buying you more time.”

JW kept his knowing smile and nodded. Jorgenson had just admitted to a crime that was worse than embezzlement.

There was a soft knock and Sandy entered. She moved hesitantly, and had to lean in close to JW to place the stack of cash on the desk. He smelled her perfume and saw the form of her breasts moving inside her silk blouse. Jorgenson nodded and smiled reassuringly at her, and she withdrew awkwardly past JW and exited.

Jorgenson placed the money near JW, but kept his hand on it. “I trust our agreement means you'll return your focus to saving this branch,” he said, holding JW with his eyes, “and forget about all this history shit.”

“It's my number one priority,” said JW.

Jorgenson nodded softly and sat back. He took up the crumpled foreclosure notice. “I'll ask the lawyers to hold off on this for now.”

“For now? Well, in that case I'm sorry, Frank, but the deal is off.” JW moved to stand. “I don't work with a gun to my head.”

“Fine!” Jorgenson cut him off with a raised hand. “I'll stop the action.”

JW nodded. “Good.”

He stood and took the stack of cash off the desk. He hefted it before he slipped it into his suit-jacket pocket. It was a parlor trick he had perfected some years ago.

“Aren't you going to count it?” asked Jorgenson.

“I just did,” he said with a smile. “Besides, we're partners.” And he left the office.

Jorgenson snorted, then reached up and pressed the intercom. “Sam, come in here.”

JW made his way through the silent bank, the log trusses soaring over him, feeling victorious. He pushed his way through the doors.

Outside the air was dry and warm, and he picked up the faint smell of wood smoke. He got into the pickup, reached into his shirt pocket, and took out the digital mini recorder. He looked down at it and pressed stop, then rewind and play to test the recording. He heard Jorgenson's voice and pressed stop. He had what he came for—a renegotiated deal and, more importantly, evidence to protect himself.

He slipped the recorder back into his pants pocket and backed out, leaving the President sign crooked in the grass.

25

JW sped past the billboard for Dr. Reed Orput, still promising to remake his life with a mouthful of implants. He turned right and drove four blocks down to the park that lay in front of his old house. He could see the house across the green space to his right. He circled the block of grass and Norway pines and parked across the street. He took one of the hundred-dollar bills out of the stack in his suit-jacket pocket and tucked it into his shirt pocket. He popped a breath mint and got out. The truck sputtered again as he crossed the pavement.

He and Carol had planted the twin sugar maples in the front yard when Chris was a baby. They had lost the old trees to Dutch elm disease, but the maples were tall now and brilliant red. A few leaves had begun to fall, and they skittered across the sidewalk as he approached the house. He stepped up under the portico and rang the bell. Chris had spent hours out here on his hands and knees, driving his Hot Wheels up and down the walk. JW looked out, remembering, and for the first time in a long while the thought of Chris didn't flood him with grief and a sense akin to spinning out of control on icy pavement. Bit by bit, he was putting his life back together. He heard footsteps and turned as the door shuddered inward.

“Hi,” said Julie. She wore dark eyeliner and lipstick.

“Hey, Sunshine,” he said. “You ready for our date?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Okay! Gimme a sec with your mother, and then we'll hit the road!”

She seemed surprised by his energy.

“I'm excited to see you,” he said, in response to her skeptical expression. She stepped back and he entered the house. White-carpeted stairs climbed straight ahead. They had a dark walnut handrail with a white-enameled balustrade, and a newel post with a carved pineapple top that was loose and lifted off. He'd saved repairing it for a project to do with Chris, but somehow they never got around to it. He ran his hand over it. He'd fix it soon.

To the left was the family room. It was the largest room in the house, a great room with a high cathedral ceiling and wood-paneled walls hung with immense brass rubbings on huge framed sheets of pale blue paper. To complement them, the ceiling was painted in a trompe l'oeil sky with powder-puff clouds, and the top of the paneling was painted with a looped chain of pale spring flowers. The room had two well-worn gray woolen sofas and a fireplace on the end wall. A large television sat in the corner. The wide bay-window bench in the front had flowered blue cushions, and the broad window's many small panes looked out on one of the maples in the front yard and to the park beyond. JW passed through the near end of the room to the back hall that ran under the stairs and led to both the basement and the kitchen. He had always loved this cut-through. It was paneled in coffee-brown wood and reminded him of a secret passage.

Carol was sitting at an ancient yellow kitchen table that had been there since before she was born, commission paperwork spread out before her. The chairs had thick red vinyl cushions and chrome legs, as if they were from an old
diner. She was talking to someone on the phone, and she sounded upset as JW walked in behind her.

“But if the policy is paid,” she said, “I don't understand why the commission has to wait thirty days.”

JW walked around and placed the stack of cash on the table, then took a chair across from her. She glanced at him and her cheeks flushed, and for a moment it felt like old times. She shook her head and her face filled with relief. He had long ago noticed that her face was softest and most open when she was relieved, and he loved those moments with her. Something about the puffiness of her cheeks and lips made him want to kiss her.

“Okay, thank you,” she said, and hung up. But then, as quickly as they had come, the joy and relief faded. Her eyes clouded and shrank, her cheeks paled, and the beauty evaporated like a mirage.

“Where did you get it?”

JW laughed. “I'm not gambling, if that's what you think. Frank finally paid me for a project I've been working on for him. I told you things would begin to work out.”